ImageZ competitions for 2014/2015 season

Through out the season we have competitions for our members to take part in. As a club that embraces digital photography we have both printed image and projected image competitions. We have the league based ImageZ Club Challenge and three other “winner on the night” competitions during the season.

These competitions are for the clubs members, and therefore only members who have paid their annual membership subscriptions are allowed to enter images in the club competitions. Competitions fill up the whole evening session to allow members and judges to review and critique images submitted.

ImageZ Club Challenge

This is a “league competition” that comprises six separate rounds with points from each round counting to determine the winner of the ImageZ Club Challenge trophy. The person most likely to win this major competition is the member who enters each of the six rounds.

Entries for the competition are submitted as digital files to the Internal Competition Secretary, this keeps the cost of competing down since you don’t need to prepare or purchase prints and mounts.

At each round there is a set “theme” and an “open” category of competition. Members can submit up to three images in total for each round. This could be one in the open category, and two in the “theme” category -OR- two in the open and one in the “theme” section. You can also choose to enter just two pictures, one in each category. The best score from the theme and the best score from the open category at each round are used to determine the score for that round.

2014/15 Themes

Winner on the night competitions

These three competitions award a winner on the night, the judge will score all pictures and the top scoring images are then shortlisted for the judge to select the best of the competition. There is a trophy for each winner of these competitions.

You can enter up to three entries for each of these competitions. Print titles must be sent to the internal competition secretary before the competition. In the event of over 80 entered images we will have to cut the third entry from each members entry, please make sure you identify your third entry.

Answers to some of the questions you may be asking before entering a competition

Projected digital images

You need to send them to the club’s internal competition secretary by midnight on the Saturday before the competition on a Tuesday. This gives the competition secretary the chance to load the images to the laptop and warn the judge about how many pictures they will have to judge. More information about the process for submitting entries is on the website too.

Prints

You need to inform the club internal competition secretary how many prints you will be entering in the competition, and the title(s) of the images by midnight Saturday before the competition on a Tuesday. You need to bring the entries on the night of the competition or make arrangements with the competition secretary or other members to bring them on the night for you.

Deadlines for entries

All entries must be sent (or title sent in the case of print competitions) to the Internal Competition Secretary by midnight on the Saturday before a competition on a Tuesday.

If we are fortunate to have a full club turnout with everyone submitting three entries it would be over 150 pictures to judge which doesn’t allow a judge to make a fair assessment of each image in the available time. In the event of too many entries – typically too many is more than 80 pictures – each members 3rd entry will not be shown or judged.

In the case of the ImageZ Club Challenge the scores will count from the two remaining entries, which must be one from the open category and one in the “theme” category.

Members enjoy the creative challenge of taking a concept and shooting pictures to match it. We find the the traditional camera club categories such as portrait, landscape and still-life are not inspiring our best pictures so we use “themes”. If we choose a “theme” such as BLUE it gives photographers the chance to interpret and be more creative with their pictures. Blue may be the blue sky in a landscape, it might be a blue racing car, someone looking sad or even a blue steak!

Competitions are available for all members, they provide a method to get valid assessment of the photos you produce. By entering our competitions the pictures are judged with the other members and scores awarded, but usually the most valuable part is listening to someone appraising your picture as they see it. Members can use competitions to get their work reviewed.

As with many creative endeavours one persons “outstanding work” is another persons “it’s ok”, but you soon get to see what draws people to recognise the best pictures.

Projected images

We use a high resolution projector for our competitions with 1400 pixels wide, and 1050 pixels tall. You need to resize your image to fit within these dimensions. However images do not need to be exactly 1400 x 1050 pixels, portrait images may be 700 pixels wide by 1050 pixels tall. Please check out the article on resizing images for digital projection elsewhere on our site.

Indeed we do cater for beginners. Specifically we are one of the few clubs to offer a dedicated workshop for new photographers trying to understand how cameras take pictures, but only photographers make pictures.

We have decided not to separate beginners, intermediate and advanced photographers in to separate classes for competitions. We have discussed and debated this several times, and there’s no correct way to determine if someone is a beginner or more advanced photographer; we have seen new photographers win competitions outright in their first year in the club. If it’s by choice then the option for an advanced photographer to elect for beginner status and win everything is there; many other clubs keep the levels for a whole season. Also for someone to elect for the advanced level only to get discouraged if they are not doing as well as expected is a possibility. The club committee have considered and experimented with various methods of “playing field levelling” with handicapping like in golf, using success ballast like in motor racing but as yet nothing really fits. Discussion with other clubs that do have separate classes for competitions also shows that this is a hugely contentious area. It seems that in reality there is no right answer.

By entering competitions with an equal chance and having critique and scoring by qualified judges we hope that members will see how they might improve their photography in the future.

Members are invited to submit this as a topic at the club’s annual general meeting (typically in April / May), or with the chairman if they feel that it needs to be revisited.

Images can only be used for two consecutive seasons

Since members may have a collection of images taken over a period of many years that could fit a competition theme then they can use them for a competition. However images can only be used for two consecutive seasons before being retired / ineligible for competitions.

If an image is entered in for a competition in April of one season it can only be used up until the end of the following season. Each competition season finishes at the end of August.

For example:

Back in 2001 you took a picture of a tractor, in the current season you decide that this image is suitable for one of the competitions and you have not used it in any club competition before.

The image can be used in the current season and up until the end of August in the following season before it is ineligible for competitions.

Other competitions

We also compete with other local clubs in the Chilterns Association of Camera Clubs, mostly through the annual Rosebowl competition, but also Photo Images (Aylesbury) and Vision (XRR). At the national club level we aim to compete in the PAGB Cup competitions and also through the CACC Print and Digital Championship events in March.

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Upcoming Events

March 20, 2018

Visiting Speaker - Mark Seymour

Mark Seymour, award winning street, travel and documentary wedding photographer will be doing an informative and entertaining talk on his street and travel photography. He will be passing on some of his vast experience as tips and tricks to how to photograph a scene or situation and how to let it develop to get the best composition and story. Mark has not only photographed UK streets but also such places as India, Vietnam, Italy, Istanbul. It promises to be a very rewarding evening.

March 27, 2018

Competition - Winner on the Night (3)

The last of the Winner on the Night competitions for this season.
OPEN - print & digital sections, up to three entries per member with max of two in one section
Judge: Keith Long from Banbury

April 3, 2018

Share a 'Story'

Members will share a sequence of images from an event they captured or from a project on which they have been working - maybe a representative set from an interesting journey or travelling. 3-5 images to be shown on one screen. Further information will be sent out well ahead of this evening but ask a committee member if you want details sooner.

April 10, 2018

Open Forum

This is the chance to have your say on anything club or photographically related. Feedback from the past season is invaluable and ideas for improvement or events welcome too. The format for the evening is yet to be decided but will probably involve small group discussion as well as in the room as a whole. If there is something specific you would like aired then please let Chris or Kathy know.

April 17, 2018

My Favourite Image

We would like members to share an image or two taken in the past year. These could be favourites for any reason - personal or practical - an interesting, amusing or embarrassing incident or a skill mastered; maybe the progress you have made in a personal project. It's always encouraging to hear how someone has struggled and 'won' or is on the road to success.

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Copyright

Photographic images used on this site are the property of the photographer that created them. Members have provided pictures for this site to promote the ImageZ camera club only.

Please do not steal the images from this site for your own purposes, commercial or otherwise. If you are interested in using a picture from this site please do get in touch through the contact form on the About us page to find out about licensing or purchase of images from the respective photographers.